Telly 31st July 2024 by Jade Hayden

LOST: It’s Time To Rewatch The Best TV Show Of The Last 20 Years

We have to go back! ... and watch these eps

via ABC

I’m a Lost girlie.

I was a Lost girlie when I was 11, I’m a Lost girlie now.

The year was 2005, and I was sitting with my mam watching the pilot of a new show that had just landed on Channel 4. 44 minutes, one plane crash, and several examples of Jack Shepherd’s God complex later, and I was hooked.

What followed would be a significant chunk of my teenage years spent in the south pacific jungle with the survivors of Oceanic flight 815, running from polar bears, dodging smoke monsters, and learning what it meant to live together, rather than die alone.

The series was my first Big Obsession. Its mysteries occupied my thoughts constantly. I joined online forums, I spoiled plot points, I started getting up at 5am to watch episodes right after they aired in the States (ABC, 9/8 central – you will always be special).

via Netflix

I engaged in my most recent Lost rewatch last year. It had been a long time since I’d watched the series, and I was certain that it would hold up. And unsurprisingly, it did.

At the time, the show’s two-part pilot was the most expensive of all time, costing between $10 and $14 million to shoot… but it was worth it. Season 1 averaged 18 million viewers per episode in the States and pretty much sweeped all of the major TV awards including the Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Ensemble Cast.

It was a special show; one that melded science fiction, drama, mystery, romance, and eventually time travel to create something that audiences had never seen before.

A 25 episode season with filler episodes that were just as engrossing as its big hitters. A character study on abandonment and loss. A monster of a show where The Monster was arguably the least interesting thing about it.

It’s highly likely that a lot more people will be delving into a Lost rewatch (or their first Lost watch ever) soon. Season 1-6 are landing on Netflix on August 15 (8/15, intentional?), finally giving you a reason to skip out on those evening summer plans and take to your couch, remote in hand, “yes I am still watching” button continuously clicked.

Lost in the era of streaming isn’t quite the same. Instead of being forced to wait a whole 8 months to see what happened after that perfectly executed season finale cliffhanger, you can go right ahead to the next episode.

Gone are the wild fan theories, racy fanfics, and waking up at the crack of dawn to see whether Jack and Juliet had finally kissed or not… but what remains is a TV show that has withstood the passing of time, and still remains as captivating as ever.

When people talk about Lost, they talk about the ending. They talk about how season 6 lost the run of itself, how lacklustre the script was, how “they were dead all along!!!!” (spoilers, they weren’t – did you even watch the show?)

And yes, the ending was was messy. But it was also perfect, was it not? Lost’s final season may have been significantly poorer than those that came before it – and a million miles away from the beauty of season 1 – but in those final moments as Jack resigns himself, that plane takes off, and the entire show comes 360, I can’t help but bawl.

We have come so far, we’ve spent so much time together, and now it’s over.

Or, is it just beginning?

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